From Thomas Reimchen, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Hans Jenks is certainly correct in identifying how remarkably successful we are as a species relative to chimpanzees, who are still “slinging poop at each other”. But Hans does not appear to recognise that 35,000 years ago, early modern humans – genetically indistinguishable from us today – had produced little of note after tens of thousands of years and were probably slinging poop at the Neanderthals who wanted access to the cave we were cowering in. What has allowed our modern advances was 35,000 years of culture, not genetics (Letters, 29 November 2025).
